They’re Doing it Again
The pictures are all over Facebook and other social media. That’s right folks, they’re doing it again. Daunte Wright is barely buried in the ground and people are trying to bury him again. I wish I had saved the Facebook posts but they have been taken down. I wonder why.
For those that don’t want to click on the link, they’ve found Daunte Wright in pictures with guns. So, obviously he must have been a bad guy. They did the same thing with George Floyd and countless others before them.
Let’s ignore the hypocrisy for the moment of people that have no qualms about openly carrying huge firearms raising a stink about a black man taking a picture with his gun. I think we are far beyond the racist double standards at this point. The implications are much simpler than that.
See, Wright was a bad guy. How do we know he was a bad guy? Well, he’s dressed like a gang banger with his gun. See, he’s threatening. So obviously it’s not a bad thing that he was shot. That’s just one more dangerous criminal off the streets. The beauty of the Facebook memes is they don’t even have to say that. If you get the racist code you are already thinking it.
The problem is two-fold. First, the reasoning only works if the officers knew all this at the time. They didn’t know who Wright was when they pulled him over. Even when they looked him up they only knew he had an outstanding warrant. They did not see a gun on the scene. Cops are supposed to assess the situation at hand. They wouldn’t have had the benefit of seeing those pictures beforehand and even if they did it wouldn’t have helped them properly assess that particular situation.
Of course, that leads nicely into the second problem. How do we know he was a bad guy? Do pictures with a gun indicate that definitively? If only there was some kind of mechanism like a court with judges and a jury that could help us determine that. That’s what’s supposed to happen. They aren’t supposed to be gunned down by the police when they are unarmed.
I’m a little more than sick and tired of the postgame chicanery from the right. They’ll post numbers of how many white people are killed by cops. They’ll post how many of them are unarmed. Even if we took those numbers at face value it doesn’t excuse any of it. It just makes the point come through with more force.
If we want to get to the bottom of this thing we can’t scour the inter webs trying to find anything to make the victims look guilty. We need to figure out why those officers went through the steps they did. Racism is surely involved on some level but maybe it wasn’t the key factor here. Maybe this would have happened regardless. Either way, we need to take a good long look at procedures and what they lead to. A postgame picture can’t erase the shame or tragedy of this event or make the officers any less guilty.
If police are being ‘held to a higher standard,’ when can we expect that standard to manifest itself in a courtroom?
They get qualified immunity, they have no obligation to tell the truth during interrogations, and they get special consideration when they screw up.
Where’s that ‘higher standard?’
1I’m long past the point where I’m shocked at people’s hypocrisy and pure shamelessness.
2Reverse psychology, maybe? There have been instances of “correct” policing when armed individuals such as Dylann Roof and Kyle Rittenhouse have been arrested without incident. So praise those occurrences and teach/train to the de-escalation standard.
Test police recruits and retest active officers for oppositional defiance disorder (ODD) and whatever else manifests as abuse of authority. Certain personality types simply do not belong in law enforcement.
That whole “I will be obeyed” attitude thingy is like a bad episode of South Park. And, the excuses? Unacceptable. Stuff most parents wouldn’t accept from a toddler. Still sitting here SMDH over “I mistook my service revolver for my taser.”
South of us in the Lake Tahoe region a few years back a cop ‘accidently’ shot a bear with a live round instead of a rubber bullet meant to guide the bear out of an area. His excuse was not “bought” by the local residents. Mofo could not resign fast enough, and probably felt fortunate to have hit the county line ahead of the tar and feathers. So that, too – communities that demand community policing standards.
Where are the fiscal ‘conservatives’? Some of those multiple $million dollar lawsuit settlements should rankle their cold asset/debit hearts. No?
3When I moved to Minnesota in 2017, I hoped that racism would be less prevalent than in Texas and the South where I lived most of my life; it wasn’t and isn’t.
Everywhere the GOP has any kind of power, racism flourishes.
4If pictures with guns on social media is supposed to legitimize summary execution by law enforcement, half my neighbors would be dead by this time. But most of them are white, so…
I’m still waiting for that Arc of History.
5@ Opinionated Hussy: Agreed. If there’s a right to bear arms, why does exercising that right automatically make one a “bad guy” – unless, of course, you’re a white Republican.
Why does posing with firearms make Lauren Boebert a defender of constitutional rights, and also make Daunte Wright a deadly threat to law enforcement?
6As you pointed out, Nick, pushing out these pictures of Daunte Wright with guns is so hypocritical. Considering the state of our politics where the likes of mtgreene or Ms boebert in their paramilitary garb and big guns is perfectly acceptable, it’s not just hypocrisy, it’s more racist dog whistles.
7This week will be telling with the jury deliberating on murder charges against a white cop murdering an unarmed vulnerable black man. If found guilty and sentenced appropriately, I’m not sure it will change things. If he is found innocent, then what?
RepubAnon ….
some of us don’t see Rep. Boebert as a defender of constitutional rights as much as someone showing off … the same as I do with a young male of a different color.
Fortunately, there are lots more pictures taken with guns in the frame than there are people shot by those guns.
8SHEEPLE.
9When I see a headline about a shooting, and the heading was “suspect in custody”, my first (and usually correct) assumption is “Oh, the guy was white.”
That pretty much says it all as far as I’m concerned.
10From Charlie Pierce’s blog:
A mob of the MAGA persuasion
Conducted a Capitol invasion.
Though possibly armed;
They parted unharmed.
And that’ how you know they’re Caucasian.
—Joe Vecchio
11Pictures with gunz, you say? MTG better watch out!
12@ john in denver :
I should have been more clear – I was trying to comment on how the media portrays people posing with firearms differently depending on their race and their political views. White right-wingnuts posing with firearms are portrayed by the media as Second Amendment defenders. Non-whites and left-of-center folks posing with firearms are portrayed as dangerous extremists.
One can argue that the right-wingnuts re extremists, and dangerous – but that’s not how they’re portrayed in the mass media unless and until they open fire.
13My opinion ain’t gonna be popular, but if you dust all the emotion and political spin away, this is a bad case to make a crusade out of.
I’m just as down on all our ‘cop problems’ as anybody, we need extensive changes in procedures and attitudes made. Of course there is a serious “systemic racism” problem, among many others, I’ve seen it happen myself.
But this case is seriously flawed.
The cop who shot Wright became aware during the stop that Wright had an outstanding warrant which involved “he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit”. During this stop Wright then violently began evading arrest, got back into his vehicle, where he -could- have had a weapon hidden, and attempted to escape.
IMO, the officer was likely justified in using deadly force, given all the factors known by her, and Wright’s actions at the time.
Factors that are very conveniently ignored in all the emotive hype swirling around now.
[heading for bunker now]…
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Daunte_Wright
“Traffic stop
Wright was driving with his girlfriend in his white Buick LaCrosse.[29] At 1:53 p.m. local time on April 11, 2021, Brooklyn Center police pulled them over on 63rd Avenue North;[31][30] officers said that they did so due to the car’s expired registration tag.[32] They later noticed the presence of an object hanging from the car’s rearview mirror, according to prosecutor Pete Orput.[32] Officers ran Wright’s name through a police database and learned that he had an open arrest warrant “after failing to appear in court on charges that he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police in June”.[4] ***Based on that information, police attempted to arrest him.[33][4]***
Police body camera footage showed two male officers and one female officer approaching the car.[25] One male officer approached the driver’s side door.[25][30] A second, unidentified male officer approached the passenger’s side door.[30] Potter, who was acting as a training officer, stood back initially.[30]
The first officer informed Wright that there was a warrant for his arrest.[30] He opened the driver’s side door and Wright stepped out of the car. The car door remained open while Wright put his hands behind his back and the officer attempted to put on handcuffs.[34] After several moments, Potter approached the pair.[25] She grabbed a small object that appeared to be a proof-of-insurance card with her right hand, then put it in her left hand.[30]
***Wright, who was unarmed [note– at the moment, on person–, if he had a weapon in the vehicle the potential danger is apparent],[1] began trying to avoid arrest, struggled with the officers, broke free, and got back behind the wheel of his vehicle.[1][30] Potter, who when the incident started had her Taser holstered on her left side and her gun on her right,[35] said, “I’ll tase you”, and then yelled, “Taser! Taser! Taser!”[2][36] Instead of a taser, Potter then discharged her firearm a single time using her right hand,[34] and subsequently said, “Oh shit, I just shot him.”[33][37][38][39] (Some sources say she said, “Holy shit! I just shot him.”[30])…”
14Sandridge @13, points well taken. But a “picture is worth a thousand words.” Officer Karen was not alone. Mr. Wright was surrounded by armed officers. We all know how that works, if you flinch.
As is often said, it’s not so much the crime as the lies and cover-up. I believe if the dead could speak, Nixon might advise Officer Karen. The situation and her story fall apart with her claim that “I mistook my handgun for a taser.” Lordy, we all have the right against self incrimination, the right to remain silent. Officer Karen’s second mistake …
15I thought as well that officer Karen felt the correct force should have been less lethal force- her taser. That oops by a 26 year veteran/training officer killed a man. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, negligent homicide/manslaughter seems appropriate.
16It’s a tough job and they should be trained for such a situation. Just like the 13 year old kid that dropped his gun, put his hands up as ordered, and was killed. I think police like to use the term, good shoot. Neither of these were good. They were bad, very bad.
Steve,
I’ll grant you that racism very likely played a minimal role in this event. However, I think it perfectly reflects two things. First, we need to have a candid conversation about police procedures. The fact that she followed procedure up until pulling the wrong weapon highlights the need to look at procedure. The Floyd case obviously highlights something else so brings forth a different debate.
The racism in question has come from those trying to excuse the action by highlighting his “criminal” record and pics with him and a gun. The question is why are some so desperate to justify this?
17I don’t think a warrant of “resisting/evading arrest and possessed a gun without a permit” is nearly enough reason to use deadly force. Or a taser with deadly force, since those are also lethal weapons when either misused or applied to someone with certain physical conditions not visible from outside.
You don’t have to shoot to kill. You can shoot to disable, and you can blow all the tires on the vehicle, for that matter. But current practice in LEO training these days is to shoot to kill. That’s one of the problems.
The reason many Black persons try to flee from police is that they expect they’re likely to be killed while in custody. It’s happened too often. Ditto trumped up charges, cops lying about what happened, cops planting “evidence” on them. They have *reason* to be afraid of any police person and to not trust anything they say.
Politically, EVERY police killing of a Black person reinforces the fear, reinforces the need to *not be caught* because a beating is the least they can expect, and death in custody is common enough to terrify them. And this is a reasonable fear. It is not true that “complying” and “telling the truth” will keep them safe. It is not true that “if you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.” They can see in the faces of white LEOs, their *hope* to use that gun, taser, tear gas…we can see it in the photographs as well.
The ONLY time lethal force is justified is when there is an *immediate* risk of death to a crime victim or bystander or LEO. We need to lower the risk *to Black people* first, before it’s reasonable to expect them to be calm. And I saw “WE” need to do that, because we want peace and security. Fanning the flames of Black fear and resentment is a stupid strategy.
If Twitter and Facebook and other social media platforms would ban ALL photos of people carrying guns (like the horror I saw over the weekend with a white family of five, parents and three cute little girls, ALL of them displaying their guns with proud grins, even the youngest who could barely lift the one she’d been handed) …if they’d use their AIs not to outlaw breastfeeding mothers but find “guns, all types” and just blank out that picture, then we wouldn’t have white families able to show off guns while Black families who did the same risked being labeled criminals for the same thing. That would help.
If we could modify police procedures to prioritize “everyone gets home for dinner” as the Scottish police do (and if you think Scots are peaceful, the answer is…NO) then the itchy finger syndrome could gradually be curbed.
18When the decision of the jury in the Chauvin murder trial is announced, possibly this week, there are a number of possible reactions that will be played out across the country. Florida repugnantican legislators led by desantis just passed a law that immediately give police more power to control civil protests including immunity to the public for driving through protesters in the streets. Let’s not kid ourselves, this is a license to attack BLM protesters that could very well take to the streets any day. It’s disgusting. I’m surprised if other red racist states don’t try the same thing.
19As Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah says, cops think everything is a gun except for their own gun…
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